The automotive industry is rapidly progressing towards the production of autonomous and/or self-driving vehicles. Autonomous vehicles utilize many sensors that generate data regarding the position of the vehicle relative to surrounding objects, such as the road, other cars, traffic signals, lane markings, pedestrians, and the like. As illustrated in FIG. 1, a vehicle 100 may include any number of sensors 102, video cameras 103, and positioning systems 104, such as global positioning systems (GPS). For example, sensors 102 may include video sensors, image sensors, ultrasonic sensors, radar sensors, light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensors, or the like. The data generated from these components needs to be processed in order to determine how the vehicle needs to react. As such, the generated data is transferred from the peripheral components to an electronic control unit (ECU) 105 over a plurality of interconnects 107. Accordingly, the additional peripheral sensors and other components needed for autonomous and/or self-driving vehicle results in a significant increase in the amount of data that is transferred within the vehicle.
Currently, autonomous vehicles that are being tested utilize data-transfers at rates between approximately 1.0 Gbps and 1.5 Gbps and employ four different low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) lanes to allow for a total data rate between approximately 4.0 Gbps and 6.0 Gbps. However, the data rate needed in the subsequent generations of autonomous vehicles is expected to increase to approximately 10 Gbps or more (i.e., approximately 2.5 Gbps using four differential LVDS lanes). This increase in the data rate far exceeds the data rate of existing systems in currently available vehicles. For example, the standard for multimedia and infotainment networking in vehicles i.e., media oriented systems transport bus (MOST) has a data transfer rate of 150 Mbps.
Some solutions for providing high-speed interconnects include electrical interconnects and optical interconnects. However, both suffer significant drawbacks when used in the automotive industry. Electrical connections, such as ethernet, may be utilized by employing multiple lanes (i.e., cables) to reach the required bandwidth. However, this becomes increasingly expensive and power hungry to support the required data rates for short to intermediate (e.g., 5 m -10 m) interconnects needed in the automotive industry. For example, to extend the length of a cable or the given bandwidth on a cable, higher quality cables may need to be used or advanced equalization, modulation, and/or data correction techniques employed. Unfortunately, these solutions require additional power and increase the latency of the system. Latency increases are particularly problematic in autonomous vehicles due to the need to make rapid decisions (e.g., braking, avoidance maneuvers, drive train corrections, etc.) needed to ensure the safety of passengers within the vehicle and/or persons and/or property external to the vehicle.
Optical transmission over fiber is capable of supporting the required data rates and distances needed for autonomous and/or self-driving vehicles. However, the use of optical connections results in a severe power and cost penalty, especially for short to medium distances (e.g., 5 m-10 m) because of the need for conversion between optical and electrical signals. Furthermore, the alignment of optical interconnects needs to be precisely maintained. This proves to be difficult in automotive applications due to vibrations and other environmental conditions that may alter the alignment of the optical interconnects, and therefore, reduces the reliability of optical interconnects.
Accordingly, both technologies (traditional electrical and optical) are not optimal for autonomous and/or self-driving vehicles that require high data-rate, low latency, and low power interconnect lines between peripheral sensors and the ECU.